The name Sven Kramer may not mean much to you unless you’re from the Netherlands, where speed skating is the national passion. Kramer, one of the best speed skaters in the world, was about to win his second gold medal at the Vancouver Olympics, in the 10,000-meter event, when his coach frantically signaled him to switch lanes lest he be disqualified. Kramer hesitated but followed the signal, and was immediately disqualified for finishing in the wrong lane. Kramer’s time would have set a new Olympic record for the distance. Kramer’s a big, strong boy and you could tell he was upset when he started throwing things and kicking holes in the ice. There was reason to fear for the coach’s life, but apparently he survived to screw up another day.

Speed skating is a wonder and its appeal is embodied nowhere better than in Apolo Ohno, a superb athlete of great charm, intelligence and overdeveloped thighs. He is a sprinter and he captured all sorts of medals in the short track events. In fact, he won more medals in Vancouver than any American has ever won in a winter Olympics, some gold, some silver, some bronze. He also may have won a medal in one of the relay races but no one can ever be sure who is even racing in the relays, much less who won or came in second or third.

The relays are the Olympic imitation of the Keystone Kops of old silent films, a stew of mayhem, confusion and chaos. In the Olympic version, many, many skaters mill around in the middle of the ice rink while one skater from each of several teams races around the rink’s periphery. Whenever one of the interior skaters feels like joining the race he or she skates into the path of the teammate on the outside and asks for a push, much in the same way a car that won’t start gets a push from another car. The pusher now joins the melee in the center of the ice while the pushee skates like crazy in pursuit of who knows what. The relay race goes on like this until, for reasons that no one understands, it stops. In fact, no one understands anything about the relay races, but they are great fun to watch if you are of sound mind and body.

What are not fun to watch are the bobsled, the luge, the skeleton and other variations of the sledding we did when we were kids. It may be fun to be in a bobsled going 90 miles an hour if terror is your idea of fun, but there’s nothing at all interesting about watching it. Occasionally the bobsleds crash and turn over and that’s kind of diverting, but it doesn’t happen often enough to warrant listening to hysterical commentators go to pieces about the importance of 14/100ths of a second.

I’m not sure I have a sufficiently developed sensibility to appreciate snowboarding and aerialist skiing. While these are amazing stunts requiring great daring and athleticism, wouldn’t they fit in better at the circus, along with the man who can stand on his index finger and the woman who can lift a Volkswagen while eating a pizza? After you have seen a snowboarder or skier catapult himself into the air where he or she performs a dizzying series of somersaults and spins before returning to earth, you find yourself curiously, and immediately, jaded. “Amazing,” you say to your wife. “Let’s see what else is on.”

I am told that much skill is involved in the sport of curling, an Olympic competition of long standing. It is not hard to understand why the sport is often prescribed as a calming antidote for persons suffering from various nervous disorders. Curling has the same effect as many sleeping potions and anti-psychotic drugs without any of the side effects. Feel an anxiety attack coming on? Put a little curling in your life and watch those demons run for their lives.

There have been so many memorable Olympic moments over the years, one could go on and on. Let me close with a personal favorite. For many years Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons have anchored the NBC eleven o’clock news in New York. For reasons only a TV executive could understand, Chuck and Sue were dispatched to Salt Lake for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. Each night, from Utah, they would broadcast the New York local news from an outdoor perch somewhere near the site of the games in the foothills of the Rockies. Rosy-cheeked and shivering in their matching blue parkas, they would read the news as if they were back in their familiar Channel 4 studio in Rockefeller Center. It was bizarre, so strange in fact that it seemed to have a deeply unsettling effect not only on us viewers but on the rest of the news team, particularly on Janice Huff, the ever-perky weather person. It was Janice who provided the historic Olympic moment. She, of course, had stayed in New York, where she would do her usual weather thing, and then send it back to Chuck and Sue on the Olympian slopes: “That’s the weather forecast. Back to you, Chuck and Sue.” That was the usual line, but on this night (and this is a true story) Janice gave the weather report and then said, “That’s the weather forecast. Back to you, Suck and Chew.”